One of the objections that come up when discussing the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, is that we cannot trust the Apostles. Even though the Apostles were eyewitnesses to the events of Jesus, they cannot be trusted because they are biased.
It strikes me, and should you too, that someone would complain that an eyewitness believes what they saw. I mean, if I saw a car crash take place, should my testimony be discredited because I am biased towards its taking place? No. The reason is because my bias has a foundation. If I saw an event and refused to believe that it took place, I would be in denial of reality. And everyone should reject my testimony because of my denial of what I saw, in favor of those who accept what they saw.
But let’s just say that I go along with the idea that founded bias (eyewitness testimony in this case) is still not to be trusted. If eyewitnesses cannot be trusted due to their bias, then we must reject any and all records of science and history that were recorded by eyewitnesses. We could only accept those who were not present to record what actually took place. Those who are not eyewitnesses can knowingly or unknowingly produce works of fiction. Frankly, they can’t know whether they are producing fiction or not because their sources (which do eventually come down to eyewitnesses) cannot be trusted. Ironically, works of fiction are favored as works of truth over works that record what actually took place.
The ironic thing here is that many people believe the Bible to be a work of fiction. If they also wish to reject the eyewitness testimony of the Apostles based on their bias, they must accept the truth of the Bible based on the fact that it records fiction.
As illogical as that conclusion sounds, it is exactly where the logic leads if someone is to reject eyewitness testimony due to bias. However, the reason why the conclusion sounds illogical is because it is illogical. But the reasoning doesn’t fail anywhere that I have presented here, it fails in the conclusion that eyewitness testimony should be rejected because the witness is biased. When we correct this flaw in our reasoning, we see that the fact that the Apostles were eyewitnesses to the life, death, and resurrected Jesus is an extremely compelling reason to understand that Christianity is true.
There is nothing wrong with maintaining a bias based on evidence. That is what a belief is. If we believe something to accurately reflect reality, then we tend to be biased towards it. The kind of bias that is not good, is a bias that goes against the evidence.
I think you need to be careful not to equivocate on the word bias. There are different types of bias. If I witness a car crash, I only have a bias toward what actually happened. If I witness a car crash that involves my wife, I have an emotional bias in that I want to assume the best in my wife’s behavior(I don’t believe that she would never put another person in danger). I also have a knowledge bias in that the depth of knowledge of how my wife behaves(Since I know she likes to speed, I may assume she was speeding when she wasn’t). All of these things may or may not bias my testimony away from the reality of what actually happened. When analyzing testimony, you take note of possible biases, and you look at the testimony with skepticism.
The disciples had a long standing relationship with Jesus prior to his death and ressurection. This constitutes an bias that goes above and beyond the reality of what they witnessed. It is impossible for any of the disciples to be considered an impartial observer, but we really don’t need them to be. When you look at the disciples testimony with a skeptical eye, it holds up. There are plenty of skeptical unbelievers hold that a good chuck of gospels is an accurate eyewitness account of what happened.
You are correct in pointing out the absurdity that if we only allow eyewitness accounts from impartial observers into the historical record, then we would have very few eyewitness accounts, but trying to pretend that all biases are equal comes off as more rhetorical word games than substance.
Agreed. Good points about bias. You sound like a lawyer.
I also agree that the disciples were very biased, both from a knowledge perspective and emotional. It’s hard to imagine anyone being more biased than they were – after all, they were convinced he was god.
“…a good chuck of gospels is an accurate eyewitness account of what happened.” This seems like a non sequitur to me, given the five points I made (in my response to Mary above) that show how the evidence lacks significantly from a credibility perspective.
Not a lawyer, but if I were a non-believer reading this, I would have stopped or discounted it before getting 2 paragraphs. The way the first two paragraphs read to me, it sounds like you are saying that bias doesn’t matter or that the disciples didn’t have a significant bias towards anything other than the truth. I am pretty sure that wasn’t your intent, but that is just how it reads to me.
You have a much stronger argument in pointing out that if we exclude all biased testimony, then we won’t have much if any testimony left. Then, add to it that there are ways of separating a person’s bias from their testimony, and when those are applied to the gospels, they hold up far better than most historical documents.
Do you not think that the bible claiming that people were being resurrected all over the place diminishes it’s credibility? Or do you think that seeing dead people walking around town was common thousands of years ago, but then coincidentally stopped being common once we developed more advanced capabilities to capture evidence of events?
I would never say that testimony should be thrown out if it has any bias, but the bias should certainly be taken into account, like any good juror would. Since you did not respond to the five points I made in my comment to Mary above criticizing the biblical “evidence”, I’m going to assume that you do not disagree with any of them.
Frank,
You set up a false dichotomy of resurrections being common-place and nonexistent. How many resurrections can you count in the Bible? Does this number qualify for either of your two options?
I will examine your five points and respond to them at a later date. Thanks again for all the comments.
Nope, both are consistent with resurrections being highly unlikely because I’m attacking the credibility of the bible – the only source of evidence for Jesus’ resurrection.
From your Christian perspective, do you think that the more resurrections listed in the bible, the more likely they all occurred?
I was addressing the original writer’s logic, but since you want my response to your 5 points, here it is.
1. Extremely misleading if not outright false. Letters among the early church fathers tie down the writers of the 4 Gospels writers very well. 2 were written by apostles(first hand account), 2 were written by the disciple’s scribes(first or second hand depending on how the scribing was actually done). Paul met with Peter and James(brother of Jesus, not the apostle) in Jerusalem on 2 occasions(Galatians 1 and 2). On the second visit John was also present, so even if you toss all 4 of the Gospels, Paul’s letters are second hand accounts that establish the basic case for the resurrection via direct interactions with 3 of the eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus. That is of course dismissing Paul’s own experience with the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus as not being an authentic first hand account.
2. You have an odd expectation here. How many eyewitness accounts of major historic events is enough? For the vast majority of historical events, we are lucky to have one 10th hand account of events. Our earliest account of the life of Alexander the Great was penned 300 years after his death. Are you suggesting that I should stop believing that Alexander the Great conquered the known world(an extraordinary event)because of this?
3. There is some overlap that suggests that the other writers may have used Mark as a guide, but at the same time, the 4 gospels each contain differing accounts of the same general events which points to each writer putting their own point of view into the writing. If they were all written by the same author, then he did a horrible job of being consistent with his story.
4. Over 5000 greek manuscripts(plus thousands of early hebrew and latin tranlations) vs possible corruption or telephone game issues. Anyone wanting to deliberately alter the gospels would have to track down and alter a whole lot of manuscripts. Since the gospels are all first or second hand accounts, then how would telephone game issues come into play? The telephone game is only an issue if you assume 1 is true.
5. Presence of bias does not automatically mean false. There are ways to determine if an eyewitness is letting bias corrupt their testimony. Archeology and other historical accounts are showing us that the authors of the gospels got many basic historical facts right. Do you have any proof that their bias significantly corrupted their testimony?
Thanks for the response.
1. You seem to agree that we don’t know EXACTLY who wrote the gospels. But you seem to think that we also have a very good understanding of who wrote them. I would urge you to read a larger variety of biblical scholars on this. I’ve recently been reading and watching debates on the matter and this does not seem to be a disputed area. You also agree that Paul was not an eyewitness, nor did he see Jesus’ resurrected body in the flesh.
2. The point is that there is only one source, and the resurrection is an extraordinary event. Wars are not extraordinary events, they happen all the time. And Alexander left pieces of evidence all over the regions he conquered, as you would expect – take a trip to Egypt.
3. OR, the stories changed over time (the “telephone game” effect). Do you not think this is a possibility? I will at least acknowledge the possibility that the contradictory stories could be a result of independent sources.
4. Exactly, dating back to 100AD. That’s a lot of time for stories to change. Multiple generations, in fact. And just because a culture doesn’t have a tradition of writing things down doesn’t mean the telephone game does not apply. They are still human. I take it you also think that Native Americans passed down all of their stories perfectly, with no alterations, no embellishments, etc?
5. It sounds like we both agree that they were bias. I never said that it automatically means it’s false. But they did have a strong bias. They didn’t just think he was great, they thought he was god – that’s not a small bias. Given that they had a strong bias, this should be taken into account when trying to assess the credibility of an extraordinary story. That’s great that the gospels got some basic historical facts right, but you’re forgetting that they got basic facts about the resurrection wrong. Their stories contradict, which means parts of their stories are not true (there’s no getting around this point).
Roger, thanks for your comments. Regarding pointing to the loss of all testimony: that is exactly what I do in my response to Frank. I was having issues with my account wanting to post comments earlier, so I just wrote a blog post. 🙂 Here it is: http://lukenixblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/challenging-eyewitnesses-of-resurrection.html
Roger,
Thank you for making that distinction. My post was already assuming the equivocation. It is rare that I hear the objection nuanced in such a way as to distinguish between bias based on evidence and bias based on emotional attachment. If the distinction were made in the objection, it tends to lose it rhetorical punch. I wrote this post quite a while ago, and today I certainly wish that I would have made that distinction more explicit and done it early in the post. By not doing so, it certainly appears as though I accept the equivocation. Thank you for the critique; it will help me in my future writings and discussions. 🙂
I see two arguments in your article. First, that eyewitness testimony should be counted as good evidence. Second, that everyone is biased, so a bias should not diminish the credibility of an eyewitness. The main reason these arguments won’t fly with skeptics is because you are equating apples and oranges.
Regarding eyewitness being good evidence. True, the further we go back in history, the more we have to rely on eyewitness testimony. However, the likelihood of an event occurring significantly affects the credibility of the eyewitness. If there was an eyewitness to a car crash, the car crash event itself does not diminish credibility, because those happen all the time. But if there was an eyewitness to extraterrestrials, or ghosts, or godzilla, or someone rising from the dead, it significantly diminishes the credibility of the eyewitness testimony because the possibility that the eyewitness was mistaken or lying increases. Do you see the difference?
Regarding bias, true, it’s pretty much impossible to find a completely unbiased witnesses, but that doesn’t mean that bias should not be taken into account when assessing the witness credibility. That’s why attorneys dive into the past of witnesses. A stranger on the street witnessing Jesus’ resurrected body is not the same as his disciples witnessing it. Consider the following analogy, one that I think is more apples-to-apples with why skeptics diminish the credibility of the disciples as eyewitnesses: There was a murder. The wife, the defendant, claims a ghost murdered her husband. The eyewitness to the murder is called and happens to also be the founder and president of Ghostsnghouls.com (a real site about paranormal activity). If you were in the jury, would you be skeptical of his testimony? Or take it a notch further, you find out that the witness critically needs the picture of the murdering ghost to be real, in fact his company’s future depends entirely on it. Would you be even more skeptical of his credibility? Do you see the parallels?
Frank, thank you for your comment. You are correct that there are two arguments in this post; however, you have missed the conclusions.
In this post I am addressing the claim that all bias is bad and necessarily leads to untrustworthiness. The assumption in this claim is that all bias is founded on illegitimate grounds. All I have to do to undermine the claim (which is all I intended to do with the post) is to demonstrate a bias that has a legitimate foundation. I showed that by explaining that witnessing an event can and does form biases in people. Since bias can have a solid foundation, the claim that the presence of any bias necessarily makes for an untrustworthy source has been defeated. Since the presence of bias does not necessarily indicate untrustworthiness, then the disciples’ claims cannot be rejected based on the fact that they were biased.
The two conclusions of this post are these:
1. Witnessing an event is a valid source of bias in the person who witnesses the event.
2. The disciples’ testimony cannot be rejected merely due to the presence of bias.
Now, you do bring up some interesting observations about the reliability of an eyewitness’ testimony (and thus the disciples’ testimony) that do need to be addressed. I will tackle those in a later post.
If you begin with the presupposition of naturalism and reject the possibility of the supernatural outright as you obviously have, then, of course, you will not even consider the possibility of the miraculous events of the Bible. That, however, doesn’t mean that they didn’t happen. It just means you refuse to even entertain the idea.
Because I have witnessed miracles, I have no trouble believing that they happened in the first century as well. Comparing Jesus to Godzilla or aliens doesn’t cut it because we do not have solid evidence for either of the latter. We DO have solid historical evidence for such things as the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I recommend the work of Gary Habermas in that area.
Actually, you don’t have to presuppose naturalism to be skeptical of eyewitness testimony. The resurrection was, after all, a miracle, and miracles are by definition extremely rare events – if miracles were not extremely rare events they would no longer be miraculous. I’m not presupposing that the resurrection could not have happened; however, I am saying that a rational person would require extraordinary evidence to support extraordinary claims.
I’m very familiar with the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, it’s a topic of interest for me because apologetics claim it to be one of the best supported supernatural claims in the bible. However, what I found is that there is no hard evidence for the resurrection. Furthermore, the evidence that does exist is very problematic. When looking for evidence to support a historical event, historians hope to find the following:
1 – Contemporary accounts (close to the events): This is simply not the case for the bible. First of all, no one saw the actual resurrection event, some only claim to have seen the aftermath (Jesus appearing to them). Second, there is no first hand eyewitness testimony in the bible. No one knows who wrote the gospels, but most historians think it was not the disciples. The stories were passed down orally from person to person for decades, until they made it into writing. No need to take my word for it, the gospel says so in Luke 1:1-4. The earliest historians think it made it into writing is about 40 years after the fact. Paul talks about it, but Paul never witnessed Jesus’ resurrected body in the flesh like the others supposedly did.
2 – Lots of sources: All we have are the gospels in the bible, which are not first hand, and Paul’s stories in the bible, which is not first hand. Nobody else, anywhere, mentions the miraculous resurrection anywhere until 100 years later, despite the fact that Jesus supposedly appeared in front of hundreds of people after death. So basically, all we have are anonymous, non first hand witnesses, and only in the bible.
3 – Independent sources: Are the gospels and Paul independent sources? Very debatable. But since they are all not first hand and had been passed down over generations, we don’t know if they are independent. They could have been started by one person and spread orally as Christianity spread, or they could have originated from separate people – we’ll never know.
4 – Consistent sources: This is certainly not the case. The resurrection stories in the bible all contradict themselves. The fact that they all contradict could be evidence that they changed over time as they were passed down orally (the “telephone game” effect).
5 – Lack of bias: The disciples were obviously very biased (see my response below to Roger).
I’m sure all reading this would agree that the above areas are all important for judging the credibility of historical testimony for any past event. As you can see, the evidence for the resurrection is lacking for all. I’d love to hear if anyone thinks my facts above are wrong, but from what I’ve read, most historians on both sides would agree. Now, the resurrection still could have happened, despite lacking in all of the five areas above. I’ve read all the arguments for the resurrection, but when you look at them through the lens that historical scholars use for every other historical event, and combine it with the fact that the testimony is claiming something extraordinary, you have to really want to believe it happened in order to buy it simply from what the bible says.
BTW, there are a lot of people who would beg to differ on your claim that there is no solid evidence for aliens. There are a lot of believers, and certainly a LOT of witnesses – first hand witnesses that are still alive. Numerous accounts at least fulfill many of the five areas listed above. Why do you think the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is stronger than for aliens?
BTW, there are a lot of people who would beg to differ on your claim that there is no solid evidence for aliens. There are a lot of believers, and certainly a LOT of witnesses – first hand witnesses that are still alive. Numerous accounts at least fulfill many of the five areas listed above. Why do you think the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is stronger than for aliens?
Guest, to prevent us from getting of the subject of eyewitnesses into the extraterrestrial, I would like to refer you to a book that discusses extraterrestrial encounters from an orthodox Christian perspective. It shows that there is no inconsistency here. The book is called “Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men” by Dr. Hugh Ross, Kenneth Samples, and Mark Clark.
Just to expound a bit on what Idanix suggested as a resource, we’re actually not doubting a good number of folks claiming aliens… we’re saying that we just don’t think what they saw and/or experienced were aliens. In other words, we’re not necessarily doubting them, we just think we have a better (and more likely) explanation.
#1 – While no-one saw the actual resurrection itself, it seems alive at point A, dead at point B, alive at point C is still pretty weighty. So, I’m not sure this point has any relevance on the overall claim.
re: no real eyewitnesses – that’s just liberal scholarship with the bias towards non-supernatural. Luke DOES say he is undertaking creating such an account, but the others are eyewitnesses (one of them probably the secretary of the eyewitness). It’s rather irrelevant how long they kept it oral before writing it, so long as it were within their lifetime.
Paul doesn’t claim to be an original eyewitness of the event. But he does claim to have checked his report with them, which they acknowledge. The point of Paul, timeline-wise, is that what the Gospels report, so does Paul… in writing, much earlier (so, that kills the development theories).
#2 – They are first hand, and separate sources. Later folks compiled them into the Bible. It’s not surprising we don’t have much from this long ago. In fact, that we do lends credibility, as so many put their lives on the line as it was THAT important to them to try and preserve. With the amount we DO still have, imagine how much there was back then. And, there is external evidence.
#3 – I guess that depends on what you mean as independent. Do they all, end up somewhat on the same page in what they believe? Yes, but I’d expect that from any group of true eyewitnesses telling the truth about a real event. Paul didn’t initially believe, but changed his view. But, then people no longer consider him external. I guess what, then, would qualify? And, if this were just a tale started by one person, is it reasonable to believe it would have spread so rapidly and with such force, even under persecution?
#4 – Either you need a lesson in what contradiction is, or maybe you can demonstrate one? And, your ‘telephone game’ comment leads me to believe you don’t really understand oral cultures and transmission.
Frank, thank you for the comment. I have a blog-length response to your first observation that can be read here: http://lukenixblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/challenging-eyewitnesses-of-resurrection.html
As a quick response to your second observation, it seems that if we dig deep enough, a “bias” could be found in anyone. This bias can be either over-hyped or under-hyped. Obviously, one side will tend one direction and the other side, the other direction. Whether a particular juror wishes to allow a bias to determine a witness’s credibility is a bias of its own, on the part of that particular juror. The atheist who rejects the eyewitness of a resurrection should also reject the eyewitness of the founder in your example, because that would only be consistent with their worldview. You haven’t given anything in this example that would undermine the credibility of the eyewitness, in virtue of her ghoulish testimony alone, to a juror who believes the supernatural exists. Further, you are not quite comparing apples-to-apples in your example, because you have only one eyewitness to that murder. While the resurrection claims many. The other eyewitnesses can either confirm, deny, or provide more or less detail when compared to the other eyewitnesses.
I would highly recommend that you read Cold Case Christianity by cold-case homicide detective J. Warner Wallace to see how detectives and the courts treat eyewitness accounts.
Just responded on your blog.
Regarding bias, are you trying to argue that everyone is equally biased, or do you agree that there are degrees of bias?
‘Even though the Apostles were eyewitnesses to the events of Jesus, they cannot be trusted because they are biased.’
And because they didn’t write a word.
Except Paul, who only claimed that Jesus ‘appeared’.
But even the Bible claims only that Paul heard a voice.
Paul also claimed to have gone to the third Heaven. That makes him a lunatic.
Unless there really is a third Heaven, and people can levitate until they get there….
Wasn’t Muhammad an eyewitness to what happened to him?
The books that made it into the New Testament canon did so because their authors either knew Jesus personally or knew those who knew Jesus personally. This was one of the key criteria in accepting individual books as the Word of God. Early church fathers accepted that Matthew and John wrote the gospels that bear their names. Mark’s source was Peter. Luke knew a variety of the disciples of Jesus.
And, of course, there were many, many more people who knew Jesus personally who didn’t write gospels. However, that doesn’t mean that they didn’t talk to the authors of the various books in the New Testament. I recommend Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses for more on them.